Analysis and Studies - Country Analysis
Switzerland - Economy and Trade Data
February 14th 2022
A flourished and stable country
Switzerland is one of the most economically-developed countries in the world. It has one of the most flourishing free-market economies. It is famous for having low unemployment rates, skilled labor force, and the second highest per capita GDP in the world (2021). During the Covid-19 period, it has maintained a low level of public debt with respect to other countries, staying approximately 15% of GDP.
In the last years, the predominant and most profitable industries have been the ones related to banking and financial services, watches and tourism. Switzerland places quite always in the top 3 of the countries with the highest quality of life; not only, ideas here are highly valued: in fact, Switzerland in 2021 ranked first in the Global Innovation Index.
Swiss Economy: Some Data
Switzerland has the 2° highest GDP per capita in the world (86,850$ in 2020). Approximately 74% of Swiss GDP is generated by the services sector and 25% by industry. The majority (more than 99%) of the businesses in this country are SMEs with less than 250 employees. In addition, it spends a lot on R&D annually (around a 3% of GDP, which is a lot).
Regarding trade, the EU is Switzerland’s main partner. Around 66% of Swiss imports are from the EU, while 43% of Swiss exports are to EU countries. In 2020, Switzerland had a net trade balance of 25.695 Million CHF, the result of the difference between CHF 299.462M in exports and CHF 273.767M in imports. In Dec ’21, exports totaled 21.277M CHF.
The top 3 products exported were: chemical/pharmaceutical products, watches and machines and electronic devices.
The top 3 imports instead were chemical/pharmaceutical products, machines and vehicles, instead of watches.